(If days and weeks have slipped past recently with no new posts, we can lay the blame on a John D. Haefele project I encouraged him to do — figuring I was an instigator, why not sign on to proofread one PDF after another, shoving to the side almost everything else? That one is almost ready to pop — though now I’m worried I might experience Haefele Proofreading Withdrawal. . . . HPW — whoa. Almost HPL, but that one is in the pipeline, too.)

Halloween would have been an apt season for the Rolling Country blurb, because it is quite horrific and squishy. A serial killer, knives, viscera — none of which bothers me, but more sedate crime fiction readers might wince a lot. Still, nothing fans of the genre shouldn’t expect. Strictly as a serial killer deal, look it up, if you’re a fan.

The Hirsch novel isn’t a carbon copy of Miami Blues by any means — less humor, in general, but the major themes all seem to be in play.

(Interstate trucking is a major aspect of the action, and I almost got to thinking: Could this angle be in tribute to the trucker lore Willeford tosses into his San Francisco novel Wild Wives? That’s probably a stretch, but I was impressed that the main thing Willeford remembered about that novel, a few decades after writing it, was how truckers signaled and made the road their territory.)

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About DonHerron.com

In 1977 Don Herron began leading The Dashiell Hammett Tour, now the longest-running literary tour in the nation. On this site you’ll find information on current walks — dates, where to meet, arranging tours by appointment — plus a hard-boiled blog with news, reviews of books and film, and a dash of noir.